and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade—
this was the craziest kind of
contentment
and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror—
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.
forget it
now, listen, when I die I don’t want any crying, just get the
disposal under way, I’ve had a full some life, and
if anybody has had an edge, I’ve
had it, I’ve lived 7 or 8 lives in one, enough for
anybody.
we are all, finally, the same, so no speeches, please,
unless you want to say he played the horses and was very
good at that.
you’re next and I already know something you don’t,
maybe.
quiet
sitting tonight
at this
table
by the
window
the woman is
glooming
in the
bedroom
these are her
especially bad
days.
well, I have
mine
so
in deference
to her
the typewriter
is
still.
it’s odd,
printing this stuff
by
hand
reminds me of
days
past
when things were
not
going well
in another
fashion.
now
the cat comes to
see
me
he flops
under the table
between my
feet
we are both
melting
in the same
fire.
and, dear
cat, we’re still
working with the
poem
and some have
noted
that there’s some
“slippage”
here.
well, at age
65, I can
“slip”
plenty, yet still
run rings
around
those pamby
critics.
Li Po knew
what to do:
drink another
bottle and
face
the consequences.
I turn to my
right, see this huge
head (reflected in the
window) sucking at
a cigarette
and
we grin at
each
other.
then
I turn
back
sit here
and
print more words upon this
paper
there is never
a final
grand
statement
and that’s the
fix
and the trick
that works
against
us
but
I wish you could see
my
cat
he has a
splash
of white on his
face
against an
orange-yellow
background
and then
as I look up
and into the
kitchen
I see a bright
portion
under the overhead
light
that shades into
darkness
and then into darker
darkness and
I can’t see
beyond
that.
it’s ours
there is always that space there
just before they get to us
that space
that fine relaxer
the breather
while say
flopping on a bed
thinking of nothing
or say
pouring a glass of water from the
spigot
while entranced by
nothing
that
gentle pure
space
it’s worth
centuries of
existence
say
just to scratch your neck
while looking out the window at
a bare branch
that space
there
before they get to us
ensures
that
when they do
they won’t
get it all
ever.
About the Author
CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).
During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), and Hollywood (1989). Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli, 1960-1967 (2001), and The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001).
All of his books have now been published in translation in over a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come, Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
Post Office (1971)
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
South of No North (1973)
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
Factotum (1975)
Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977 (1977)
Women (1978)
Play the Piano Drunk /Like a Percussion Instrument/Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)
Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
Ham on Rye (1982)
Bring Me Your Love (1983)
Hot Water Music (1983)
There’s No Business (1984)
War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
The Movie: “Barfly” (1987)
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988)
Hollywood (1989)
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
Screams fro
m the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993)
Pulp (1994)
Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s (Volume 2) (1995)
Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996)
Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (1997)
The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994 (Volume 3) (1999)
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems (1999)
Open All Night: New Poems (2000)
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001)
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)
Copyright
YOU GET SO ALONE AT TIMES THAT IT JUST MAKES SENSE. Copyright © 1986 by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2007 ISBN: 9780061873041
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